


Something To Live For

by vials



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7534048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q always got the impression that James wasn't a conventional man. Therefore, it seems totally logical that James would wait until the middle of a crisis to bring up something like feelings, and of course he's injured, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something To Live For

It was late, and Q-branch was down to the skeleton crew always present when there was a crisis. Q thought that by this point, “crisis” was probably putting it lightly. Things had only grown steadily worse, and now he was standing at his workstation, his hands gripping the edges of the table like a vice. His knuckles were white and his fingers ached, but he didn’t dare let go. He couldn’t, or he knew he would only start shaking. He had to keep it together.

“Bond?” he asked, trying to ignore the tightness in his throat. “Do you hear me?”

The line was silent for several more seconds; Q focused on his breathing, keeping it even.

“I hear you,” James finally said, and Q fought the urge to breathe an audible sigh of relief.

“You need to keep talking to me,” Q told him. “You can’t risk losing consciousness.”

“I don’t think that’s a risk so much as an inevitability at this point,” James said. Q hunched his shoulders.

“Of course it’s an inevitability, with that attitude,” he said, and James gave a weak laugh.

“There we are. I was getting convinced you were worried.”

“What gave you that impression?”

“You hadn’t said anything even remotely cutting for a while,” James said, laughing again. Q heard it quickly turn into coughing. He didn’t like the sound of the coughs.

“How’s the bleeding?” he asked, once James had recovered slightly.

“It hasn’t got any worse,” James said, and Q noted how his voice sounded thick, his words bordering on slurred. “It’s slowing down.”

“That might not be a good thing,” Q muttered, quickly typing something into the keyboard in front of him. His eyes scanned the screen quickly. “Medical isn’t far from you. If you stay conscious and stay still, you should make it.”

“Should,” James repeated. “That’s promising.”

“Do you want me to tell you that you will?” Q asked.

“I wouldn’t ask you to lie,” James replied, and Q tried to ignore the way the words sent a stab of pain through him.

“You’re not –” he began, but stopped himself. “What do you mean?” he asked instead.

“I mean I won’t ask you to make promises you might not be able to keep,” James said, and Q dropped his head, staring at his hands, now gripping the desk so tightly that he could feel the tips of his fingers beginning to go numb.

“Three minutes,” he said. “At most. You can’t possibly die because of a stab wound, Bond. It’s far too normal for you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” James said conversationally. “It was a pretty impressive knife. Shame he didn’t leave it stuck in me, really. At least I could bring you back some equipment, even if it wasn’t strictly mine.”

Q smiled; to his horror, he felt his lip trembling.

“Two minutes,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Just keep talking to me.”

“You sound upset,” James said, and Q took another breath, wondering if James could hear it hitching.

“I’m worried,” he said, briefly closing his eyes as they stung. He opened them again, watching the blinking data on the screen in front of him. James’ dot was still there, flashing regularly. “I don’t like losing any of my agents. I do like to get you all back relatively unscathed. Failing that, alive is nice.”

“You do a decent job, for someone fresh out of school,” James told him, and Q let out a snort.

“Don’t start. You might be injured, but you still can’t get away with that.”

“Maybe it’s the blood loss talking,” James said, and his speech was definitely slow now, slurred, like he was drunk except Q didn’t think he had ever seen the man actually drunk. “But I’ve grown to enjoy our meetings. It’s refreshing, having someone like you around. I like it.”

“Was that a compliment?” Q asked, but his heart was thudding painfully in his chest.

“Perhaps,” James said.

“One minute,” Q said, his voice thick, because he knew where this was going and it seemed like the cruellest twist of fate. “Just keep pressure on the wound and—”

“I like you, Q. I think, if things were different, and if I thought you were more the type to date colleagues—”

“I would,” Q interrupted, his chest aching. “I would. With you. I would. But that hardly matters now, does it? Not now you’re—you’re—” He broke off, taking several deep breaths. He was on the verge of sobbing, his throat tight. If any of the others had noticed, they were thankfully not saying anything. “You pick your moments, 007. You’ve been sitting on this for – for how long? How long were you bottling this up?”

“Since I thought a pretentious art student was chatting me up in the National Gallery,” James said, and Q did let out a sob then. He swallowed it back, blinking, breathing in slowly through his nose and out through his mouth.

“Medical should be there at any moment,” he said, and he could hear them now, hear their footsteps through James’ microphone. “Please don’t give them any trouble, Bond.”

“Of course not,” James said.

“And James?” Q asked, staring at nothing in particular as his vision blurred. “I know you agents can be arseholes sometimes, but I really hope you don’t intend to tell me that and not come back to me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Q.”

“Good,” Q said, managing a smile.

“You believe me?”

“Of course I do,” he said, brisk again, his fingers gliding over the keyboard as he began mobilising transport. “You’ll do anything you set your mind to. You’re nothing if not stubborn.”


End file.
